Running is Sexy
This VOX outpost is focused on my two foremost everyday passions, baseball and running. Everyone knows that a Major League Baseball season is a "marathon season" with its 162-game regular season schedule followed by profound October magic and even a possible November finish to this year's World Series. And this year that old adage rings even truer because I will go right from a World Series championship clubhouse celebration to my first marathon -- hopefully the ING New York City Marathon on Nov. 4. Either way, I will be running a marathon somewhere in early November, so this Marathon Season blog on VOX is my combination of the two.
But today I have to address the open audition for Sexiest Man Alive that my new and impressive friend Miss Scotch has just posted. It does have something to do with my normal subject matter. This is going to sound like shameless campaigning, but trust me, it just feels good to know that I even feel like discussing this in a participatory manner now. And while I don't mean it to be prideful, I mean it because I am proud of who I am right now.
I am 47 and the father of three awesome boys 19/15/13 who live with their Mom back in the Midwest, and I am both happy and even surprised to say that I have never felt sexier in my entire life. Last Dec. 1, I traded in my Kools for a pair of Asics, moved to the Upper West Side a block away from The Dakota next to Central Park, and this past weekend I increased the mileage on those running shoes to 422.4 according to my daily logbook. I have run in 13 races since that life change, lost weight in key areas, rediscovered muscle in other areas, cleaned out my lungs and my entire body, toned my legs to statuesque rips, done 50 to 70 park bench pushups before every run and core work after most of them lately, shopped for a lot of new clothes by necessity, brainstormed countless professional and personal ideas while running and followed them through; shaved off close to a minute of my mile pace every 4 to 6 weeks (now 9:13); qualified this past weekend for the 2008 New York City Marathon; and felt awesome about myself. Even my hair feels and looks better. My boys and I (thank God for email/IM/phone since MLB moved me to NYC) talk about things like working out and nutrition much of the time, and they call and say, "Dad, did you PR?"
My goal is to show others that you can go from a smoker to a marathoner within the same calendar year. I have run in three Half-Marathons (13.1 miles) and will run a few more of those between now and my first 26.2. My personal objective is to challenge myself in new ways, doing it through running and then showing myself that anything is possible in EVERY aspect of life. It is about drive and ambition and never, ever paying attention to one's age. I feel so much sexier now than I did 10 years ago, it is indescribable. All that is required is a true PASSION for something healthy in your life, and all good things will follow. I am not sure if the Sexiest Man Alive title will follow, but I thought it was funny enough to write about it here. I got a kick out of Miss Scotch's post, and as someone whose high school Saturday nights were often spent watching John Belushi live, I have to say that, man, I wish he had turned his obsession to the one I have at this point in life. There are times as a runner when you don't feel very sexy, like when you are in the last miles of a Half and you are chafing in a few key places with two or three blisters forming, but to me there is nothing sexier than SPEED and that feeling of a final kick sprint in the last mile of a big race.
"Start easy and finish hard."
Those were the first words I ever remember from my running days, uttered by New York Road Runners CEO Mary Wittenberg at the start of my first race last December at Central Park. Gotta love 'em. I still have a long way to go and I love the feeling of waking up each morning to train at my own private Olympic village (Central Park) without needing any contrived motivation. I love seeing the results each day in the mirror, in the way I feel, and on the race results page of the NYRR website. There are still days when I can't even imagine that I am going to run a marathon. But it's the thrill of the chase, and the application of the CANI (Constant and Never-Ending Improvement) principle that became ingrained on my Tony Robbins CDs during my comeback from the Tech Bubble. (RIP MAX Broadcasting Network, my nearly acquired dot-com darling of 1999-2001 and those 1.6 million shares.) I'm not going to be on the cover of a magazine, but it feels really cool knowing you have never felt sexier in your life. At my age, baby.
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